Epicurus

Epicurus was born to Athenian settlers on Samos and took up philosophy at fourteen, reportedly because his teacher could not explain where Hesiod's 'Chaos' came from. After teaching in various cities he settled in Athens in 306 BCE and bought a garden outside the walls, which gave the school its name. The Garden admitted women and slaves, and its members lived simply in common; over the gate, it was said, stood the words: Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure.

His physics came from Democritus with one addition: atoms falling through the void swerve slightly and without cause, which makes collisions possible and leaves room for free will. The purpose of physics was wholly ethical. Once you understand that the universe is atoms in motion, that the gods do not meddle in human affairs, and that the soul dissolves with the body, you are freed from the two great fears. 'Death is nothing to us: when we exist death is not present, and when death is present we do not exist.'

His pleasure is often misread as indulgence. What he prized was the absence of bodily pain and mental disturbance, attainable with water, bread and the company of friends. Desires are natural and necessary, natural but unnecessary, or neither; wisdom satisfies only the first kind. Ill for much of his life, he wrote on his deathbed that despite severe pain the memory of conversations with friends made him happy.